David Koehler is the Executive Director of PALM, the Peoria Area Labor Management Council and the President and CEO of LMC Health Programs. He was first hired by PALM in 1985 and has been the only executive director to date. LMC Health Programs is a subsidiary of PALM and began in 1992 as a purchasing cooperative to help bring down the high cost of health care services for its members.

Dave is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. He has served as pastor (part time) for Stark Congregational Church, in rural Stark County, Illinois, since 1981. He has also helped to found New Church, a new congregation of the United Church of Christ, on Peoria’s near Northside.

Dave has been involved politically in Peoria, spending six years on the Peoria County Board and eight years on the Peoria City Council. In 1997, after an unsuccessful run for mayor, Dave was appointed to chair the newly formed Neighborhood Development Commission, which he resigned from in April, 2005.

In the spring of 2002, Dave was campaign manager for State Senator George Shadid.

Before coming to Peoria from California in 1978, Dave and his wife Nora worked for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, (as staff of the National Farm Worker Ministry). Dave was hired by Friendship House, an ecumenical social service agency in Peoria, in the fall of 1978.

Dave and Nora have lived in the North Valley ever since coming to Peoria. Dave is also president of their neighborhood association. He and Nora have three grown daughters all living and working in Peoria.